PRESS STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN KENNARD
2 GHZ MOBILE-SATELLITE MO&O, THIRD NPRM, AND ORDER
ET DOCKET NO. 95-18
This Order highlights one of the most important core functions of this agency: managing the
spectrum for the benefit of the American public. Our spectrum policies should promote competition,
consumer choice, and spectrum efficiency. This Order achieves all of those goals. The Worldwide
Mobile Satellite allocation, which we first advocated at the 1992 World Administrative Radio
Conference, is critical to providing genuinely global service, expanding consumer choice around the
world, and inaugurating third generation mobile communications technology. I am extremely proud
of the role the FCC played in securing this allocation.
The domestic allocation process for this service has been challenging. We use these bands
more intensively than any other country on Earth. Allowing Mobile Satellite Services to be provided
at 2 GHz will require relocation of important existing services. Other bands that have been allocated
for Mobile Satellite Services, such as the Big LEO band above 1 GHz, were not crowded. Therefore,
in that case it was not necessary to require that the relocation costs of incumbent licensees be paid.
I believe we have made a wise decision to adhere to our Emerging Technologies policies as they
relate to the relocation of Fixed Service microwave licensees in the band, and to extend these policies
to the relocation of licensees in the Broadcast Auxiliary Service. The BAS is essential for providing
coverage of breaking news, sports events, and other special events to the American public, and many
of the incumbent Fixed Service microwave licensees provide critical infrastructure and public safety
services.
The adoption of this item brings us a step closer to genuinely universal mobile service. This
will be a great benefit to American industry, which will produce and launch a large part of the
infrastructure of the satellite-based mobile communications network, and to America's consumers,
who will have more choice in securing these services. I would like to move this proceeding to a
conclusion as quickly as possible.
-FCC-